madremissy wrote::wave2: Silly question, what is the baskets in front of them form. I know it is part of the training but what part? Just wondering. And Sam is huge and beautiful

It is called an "article guard" and basically the dog is told to guard the object, the decoy tries to steal it, and the dog has to protect it. There are more intricate rules to it, but that's the basic gist.

And isn't Sam GORGEOUS?! I know his owner, Debbie, is head over heels for him. He's a lot of dog!!

Last edited by SisMorphine on September 7th, 2008, 8:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

madremissy wrote::wave2: Silly question, what is the baskets in front of them form. I know it is part of the training but what part? Just wondering. And Sam is huge and beautiful

The baskets are to train the object guard. In many sports (KNPV, Ring, and even PSA) dogs are trained to guard an object. In ring, I believe the object is always a basket...In KNPV, it's a box in the woods...in PSA it could be anything (purse, car, golf cart, anything). You place your dog on the object, and tell it to guard the object, the decoy comes in. The dog can not come off the object until it is biting, and it can't bite until the decoy comes within a certain distance (not sure of the distance in ring, but with Cy, I trained him not to bite until the decoy actually touches the object). The decoy then "works" the dog, and when it gets a certain distance away from the object, the dog comes off the bite, and goes back to the object to guard it again. All this is done without the handler being right there...